Adam Price: While the additional package of financial support announced yesterday is clearly welcome, it does not fully compensate the hospitality sector for the lost revenue over the festive season, and there are other sectors that are continually being locked out of sufficient support—the taxi drivers whose trade in December largely depends on taking people to and from bars and restaurants, and...
Adam Price: The First Minister knows that we in Plaid Cymru have supported the Government, even in making difficult decisions, when we are of the view that the Government has done the right thing. And generally speaking, we do believe that the First Minister's done the right thing by being cautious from the beginning of the pandemic, and to a great extent, he struck the right balance between safeguarding...
Adam Price: 4. What strategies does the Welsh Government have in place to ensure that young Welsh speakers can stay in the local community, especially in rural communities? OQ55976
Adam Price: Jeremy Miles told a Senedd committee that the Government had carried out an analysis of the dual effect of COVID and Brexit on the Welsh language and rural communities, and that you, as the Government, on the basis of that assessment, have accepted that there was room for concern, particularly because of the housing crisis and the increase in the number of people from outside the areas who...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, a study recently published by researchers at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine has found that mass testing in Slovakia, which we've discussed before, coupled with other measures—additional support for people who are self-isolating—brought the infection rate down by 60 per cent, which is considerably higher than the impact of the recent...
Adam Price: Thank you for that, First Minister. In the TAC advice that I just referred to, they do say that a period of pre-isolation for families with children, as a result of school closures, could reduce the level of social mixing ahead of the 23 to 28 December period, and therefore have a beneficial effect in terms of saving lives. Are you considering this as an option, First Minister, and if you...
Adam Price: Just to be clear, so, in terms of the pre-isolation point then, will Welsh Government be giving wider advice to families in relation to a pre-isolation period? Finally, on Monday, your colleague the health Minister warned that further restrictions may be necessary in response to the rising level of cases. A few weeks previously, the Deputy Minister for the economy also said that a second...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. The UK Prime Minister has repeatedly scored own goals by only partially and belatedly heeding Marcus Rashford's call to provide free schools meals in England. While the Conservative Government has an ideological objection to helping the most vulnerable in society, in Wales, we have a moral obligation. Providing free school meals is one of the best ways of mitigating the worst...
Adam Price: First Minister, as you are aware, the Scottish Government has recently committed to universal free school meals for all primary school children. In 1943, Finland introduced a law clearly requiring free school meals to be served to all children, a policy that is in place still today. And as the Finnish experience has shown—we've modelled much of our education system on them, and actually...
Adam Price: I don't need to tell you about the value of progressive universalism; the point of universality is that you ensure then that everyone who needs it gets it. In relation to your point about finite resources, we need to be smart, so we need policies that deliver more than one objective. And so you can see, with universal free school meals, if you link it, for example, with the foundational...
Adam Price: Thank you. I'm glad to move those amendments and to respond to the debate. I think it is welcome that the Welsh Government has produced this plan. We called for a winter plan, and it's important that it's clearly understood, and, of course, it needs to be adaptable, because of the continuing dynamic nature of the pandemic. As well as having that medium-term strategy, which is absolutely...
Adam Price: We called yesterday for you, First Minister, to give urgent consideration to introducing tier 4 restrictions earlier than the twenty-eighth, if, as is clear, many areas in Wales are already at the level of severity that is set out in the document that you published. So, we welcome that. The obvious question is, given that many areas in Wales are already at that level of severity, why wait...
Adam Price: Thank you, Llywydd, and it's a pleasure to move the amendments tabled in the name of Siân Gwenllian.
Adam Price: The vote being held in Westminster today is a piece of pure political theatre. It's not necessary to ratify the treaty, as the Executive can do that without parliamentary approval. It isn't even necessary to implement it, as most of that can be done via secondary legislation. The proposition that this is somehow a vote on 'no deal' is an unalloyed barefaced lie that the Westminster opposition...
Adam Price: Diolch, Llywydd. First Minister, Mohamud Hassan was a fit and healthy 24-year-old. On Friday evening he was arrested at a property in Cardiff, where neighbours reportedly spoke of a significant commotion. Having been taken into custody at Cardiff Bay police station, Mr Hassan was released without charge on Saturday. Later that evening, he tragically died. Witnesses were reportedly shocked by...
Adam Price: In 1990, following the most high-profile murder case in the history of South Wales Police, three black men were wrongly convicted of the murder of Lynette White, and, 11 years later, 12 police officers were acquitted on a technicality in the largest police corruption case in history. In the case known as the Butetown Three, five police officers were disciplined 11 years ago following an...
Adam Price: First Minister, you're right, obviously, to point to those positive steps that should be supported and encouraged, but would you accept that more can and needs to be done? I'll give you one example—just 2.6 per cent of South Wales Police officers are black, Asian and minority ethnic, compared to 6.7 per cent of the population within the force area. Statistics produced by the Wales...
Adam Price: First Minister, if the rate-limiting factor is supply—and the health Minister just said that that was true across all of the nations—what it then explains is the differential rate of vaccination in Wales compared to, as we've heard, the UK as a whole, England and Northern Ireland in particular. If it's the same rate of supply across these nations, then why are we seeing a differential...
Adam Price: First Minister, you haven't addressed my question, and it's a reasonable question for me to put to you, and, indeed, it's a question that my own elderly parents ask me, because they're in the position—they haven't had a date at all; both of them in their 80s. My father, an 85 year old ex-miner, has chronic obstructive pulmonary disease; he in a clinically vulnerable group, and yet he has...
Adam Price: It's right, of course, for us not to be just parochial, if you like, and comparing ourselves to other nations in these islands, but comparing ourselves to some of the best in the world. We know, of course, by Sunday, Israel had vaccinated 20 per cent of its population—I think it's now up to 28 per cent. It was initially expected that their programme would also suffer a slow down with Pfizer...
